Judging Books by their Covers.

I go to the bookstore a lot. I look at the very old books. (Late 1800 to early 1900,) I look at the condition of the spine and binding, to see how it has held up over time.

While I was looking today, I found a book with a nice old leather binding, and raised ribbing along the spine. It had a title that was something like "We Were Pirates Both of Us." I took it out, looked at it a bit and shelved it.

A thin man looking over my shoulder immediately asked for the book, and explained that it was one that he needed badly for his collection. He asked if I was also interested in the author.

I told him that mostly I was interested in the title and the binding.

He asked why and I said "If it had been poetic enough, and implied something artistic or ironic, and the book was cheap enough ($1 or so,) and contained no illustrations, then I would have taken it home, unbound it, and rebound blank pages in it, to make it into a sketchbook."

The thin man turned very pale, thinking no doubt, of me at the binding of his Pirate book, and of all the other books he needed for his collection, (probably all signed firsts, too!) sitting in my spare room minus their guts.

I tried to reassure him, saying that the people that worked at the bookstore wouldn't price the valuable books at a buck, and I never used books that were in good condition inside the pages, that's why I put the Pirate book back.

He still seemed upset until I said that the best ones were encyclopedias and other reference books, especially medical ones.

"I don't collect those." he sighed with obvious relief.